Google launches ‘revolutionary’ email feature
by Jan HarrisGoogle claims its new ‘Priority Inbox’ will revolutionise the way people use emails, according to V3.co.uk. The feature uses sophisticated algorithms to analyse incoming emails and decide how important they are. It then prioritises them as either ‘important’, ‘starred’ or ‘everything else’. The system analyses a number of factors including the content of the email, [...]
August 25, 2010
Yahoo! now powered by Bing in US
by Jan HarrisThe results of a 10-year deal struck last year between Microsoft and Yahoo! are now started to take effect. Microsoft’s Bing search engine now powers Yahoo search results in the US and Canada, with other countries expected to follow soon. Bing is designed to organize search results so that the user can make quicker and [...]
August 23, 2010
Google announces major boost for Dublin
by Jan HarrisGoogle is creating a new ops division in Dublin, creating 200 jobs including roles for graduates with IT skills. The new operations centre, which will be located in Dublin’s Eastpoint Business Park, will develop location-based products for the search giant, such as Google Local and Google Maps. The center will help to manage thousands of [...]
August 20, 2010
Google chief envisions future youth name changing to escape social media
by Darren AllanEric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has been talking about the future, and coming up with some very – shall we say interesting – comments. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he envisaged a future where the youth of tomorrow should, in their later life, be automatically entitled to change their name and identity to [...]
Firesay brings voice navigation to Firefox
by Jan HarrisA new Firefox add-on called Firesay allows users to control the browser with voice commands, although the scope of these is limited at the moment. With Firesay users can tell the browser to carry out internet searches and open and close sites – but only the sites that it is programmed to open. It will [...]
August 16, 2010
Yahoo! offers Premier League football highlights
by Jan HarrisYahoo! has announced the launch of a new service offering video clips of Premier League football games. The clips, which are up to five minutes in length, offer all the goals from the previous weekend’s action and will be available from just after midnight every Monday. The service follows Yahoo!’s successful World Cup activity with [...]
August 13, 2010
Google unleashes Chrome v6 beta
by Darren AllanGoogle has released a new Chrome beta this week, which brings with it a number of new features and tweaks. The primary one being trumpeted is autofill which, as the name suggests, provides a facility to automatically fill in forms on the web. When you start to fill your name in at the top of [...]
August 12, 2010
Facebook costs businesses millions in lost time
by Jan HarrisTime wasted on social networks could be costing businesses millions of pounds according to research by MyJobGroup.co.uk Out of a survey of 1,000 workers in the UK, 6% spent over an hour a day on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with obvious implications for productivity especially for SMEs. MyJobGroup.co.uk estimates that this lost time [...]
August 10, 2010
Google and Verizon announce Internet plans
by Jan HarrisSearch giant Google and telecommunications company Verizon have issued a statement on their Internet plans. The two companies have been talking about net neutrality – the concept that all content should be delivered by the Internet at the same speed. Concern that Google and Verizon were working on plan that would allow ISPs to pay [...]
August 9, 2010
Auto-updates For Firefox 4
by Jan HarrisMozilla has announced that auto-updates will be available for the latest version of its Firefox browser, which was released in beta last month Users of the Windows version of Firefox 4 will be able to switch the auto-update feature off if they wish, but Mozilla will then inform them when a vital patch is necessary. [...]
August 6, 2010
UK average broadband speed tops 5Mbps
by Darren AllanBroadband speed analysts at Broadband.co.uk have announced that the UK has crested the 5Mbps average speed mark. According to the firm, the average British broadband connection runs at 5.106Mbps, based on an average of thousands of broadband speed tests taken via the site during the month of July. That figure is up considerably from a [...]
August 5, 2010
SMEs need educating about SEO
by Jan HarrisSMEs are wasting the opportunity to attract more visitors to their website, according to the ‘Naked SEO’ report by dotSEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a website’s ranking in search engine results. In its survey of marketers, dotSEO found that 25% knew very little, if anything, about SEO, and only 14% [...]
July 28, 2010
Asia top for broadband speed while UK lags behind
by Jan HarrisWhile Asia is romping ahead in the broadband speed race, the UK isn’t even in the top 100. According to Akamai’s State of the Internet report for the first quarter of 2010, Masan in South Korea was the fastest online city, with an average maximum connection speed of 40.5Mbps. The top European country was Sweden, [...]
July 22, 2010
No need for SMB websites to be works of art
by Darren AllanThere is no need for your small business website to be a finely honed work of art, says the Chairman of Daryl Willcox Publishing, a company which specialises in marketing advice. Not that it will do you any harm, but there’s no point in spending unnecessary amounts of cash on an all-singing-and-dancing site if you [...]
Almost half of UK broadband complaints go unresolved
by Darren AllanA survey of 2,500 broadband users conducted by Broadbandchoices.co.uk has revealed that 46% of complaints regarding their connections are left without a resolution. Or more specifically, the respondents don’t feel that the ISP has managed to reach a successful resolution to their problem. In fact, the situation is so bad when it comes to the [...]
July 21, 2010
E-commerce sales remain robust for SMBs
by Darren AllanSoftware developer Actinic has completed its quarterly survey of UK based small and medium businesses, and discovered increased revenues in online retail. Overall revenue was up 15% in the three months up to June 2010, compared to the same period last year. Online sales are growing faster than the high street, but even so, the [...]
July 12, 2010
Government spending challenge website: What would you cut?
by Darren AllanThe UK government has launched a website, and a Facebook page, dubbed the “spending challenge”. And it’s nothing like the previous Labour government’s spending challenge, which appeared to be to slosh as much money up against the wall as possible without a single thought for the future. The coalition’s spending challenge is basically the chance [...]
Spotify comes to Linux
by Darren AllanThere’s good news for Linux users who want access to streaming service Spotify’s library of eight million plus songs. There’s now a Spotify client that you can download and use, although the not-so-good news is that this is still a preview version. This means it doesn’t have all the functionality of Spotify for Windows or [...]
July 8, 2010
Google announces Life in a Day film
by Darren AllanFancy being a film star? Well, now’s your chance, of a fashion, with a new project Google and LG have announced called Life in a Day. Google is calling it a historical cinematic experience, and Life in a Day involves anyone around the world picking up a video camera on July 24th, and filming a [...]
July 5, 2010
Easynet Connect announces uncontended SDSL for businesses
by Darren AllanEasynet Connect, an ISP which specialises in small and medium businesses, has announced that its SDSL Internet connections will all be upgraded to have a 1:1 contention ratio. In other words, no one else will be using your line’s guaranteed bandwidth except you. The change comes at no extra cost to customers. Easynet’s SDSL service [...]